Chipping Away at the To-Do List: Jan and Feb 2017

Here is a little glimpse of the progress at Dimes Brewhouse over the last few months. This list isn’t all-inclusive, but it covers the big stuff.

Brite Tanks

In December, we found a brewery in San Francisco that was selling their brite tanks. They were just the size that we needed. Used equipment is fairly hard to come by these days, so we knew we had to act quickly. Luckily, we have friends who live in the San Francisco Bay area, and they drove downtown to inspect the tanks and take more pictures for us. We paid to have them picked up, crated, and put on a truck headed to Michigan. When they arrived we had some excellent volunteers that helped move the tanks around inside the building.

Boiler and HVAC Installation

It took us MONTHS to find a company that was willing to take on the job of installing our boiler system, and could do it for a reasonable price. A lot of companies do small residential boiler systems, and a few companies do big commercial boiler systems, but we needed something in-between. We finally came across Block Sloane Heating and Cooling. They have already installed a new furnace and air conditioner and done some necessary re-routing of duct work. The boiler is in place and ready for the rough mechanical inspection, which has to occur before they finish the job. And that brings me to the next topic…

Inspections

I suppose anyone who has ever been involved in a major construction or remodeling project would laugh at me on this one, but I had no idea how many inspections were required during the construction process. The scheduling can get a little crazy with multiple types of inspections and different contractors in and out of the building. So far, we had the required initial inspections, and we’ve passed our rough plumbing, rough electrical, and framing inspections. The framing inspection was just done last week, so Hardy Builders can finish the drywall now. We’ve also got the rough mechanical inspection scheduled for this coming week, and Block Sloane will be able to finish the boiler installation after that.

Cabinets and the Bar

Hardy Builders is building our bar out of boards from an old maple tree that we cut down a few years ago. (More on that in a later blog post!) They also made us some custom shaker-style maple cabinets for the back bar and under-bar. We painted the cabinets ourselves. Painting is easy, but very time-consuming. I’ve done a lot of painting, but never painted cabinets before, and I learned the hard lesson that every surface should be painted, not just the parts that will be shown. This is to keep the wood from soaking up moisture from potential spills. So we painted the bottom, back, and sides of the cabinets that will never see the light of day. They are finally looking great and ready to be installed along with the bar.

Everything Else

We’ve purchased a bunch of supplies lately. We have the tile and grout that will go under the front of the bar (the part of the bar your feet kick up against), and as a backsplash behind the back bar. We have our flooring material ready to go – we ordered classic black and white vinyl composition tile (VCT). We had fun picking out lights and ceiling fans. We’re building some prototypes of the table tops for the taproom. And as always, we are working on refining our beer recipes by home brewing on the weekends in 5-gal batches.

Whew! There is a ton more stuff we have to do before we open, but we are certainly chipping away at the list. We know everyone is anxious for Dimes to open. Please rest assured that we are doing everything within our power to make that happen as soon as possible. So hang in there with us – craft beer is coming to Dimondale, it’s just taking a little while longer than we all expected. “Good things come to those who wait,” right?